What are the best ways to make passive income?
It’s everyone’s dream to be able to have an income that doesn’t involve you swapping large chunks of your life for money. In fact, the wealthy wouldn’t dream of having it any other way!
A passive income is, simply, the income you get without having to do anything extra after you’ve set it in motion.
Trading or e-commerce aren’t really passive incomes: while it’s true that the amount you get isn’t dependent on how much time you spend, you still have to do accounts, advertise, manage stocks, etc. Even self-publishing an e-book is useless without spending your time advertising it to people: the days of “build it and they will come” are long gone.
There are lots and lots of different ways of making a passive income. Here at AQRU, we’re fans of simple “set it and forget it” solutions.
We’ve read many different ideas ourselves; many of them are comically impractical for the regular person: such as “start a vending machine business” or “buy a company” since they require substantial assets or effort up-front. As for “pet-sit at home”, I’m not sure that the person writing that has ever met an actual pet if they think only light supervision is required.
Down in a regular-person city, the only really practical way to earn a passive income is to take your assets and make them work for you: money makes money, it’s really that simple.
This means investing wisely.
You’ve read this far, so *congratulations*, you qualify as wise!
OK, let’s get serious.
Savings, Investments and Balances
So, the two passive income methods that are “set and forget” are saving, and investment. The general difference between the two is that when you invest in something, it’s investing in an asset of some kind. That means the value of the underlying asset can change. It can go up, and it can go down. If it goes down, you can end up with less than you started with.
Making a choice of where to invest is difficult. The most important things to establish are: (1) how much risk do you want to take, (2) what’s the time period you want to invest for, (3) are you likely to need access to your funds unexpectedly, and (4) how much do you want to invest (“never invest any money you can’t afford to lose”).
Stocks and Shares ISAs
Most “conservative investors” would traditionally choose to invest in something like stocks and shares ISAs. This is a fund you would buy “units” in. There are a confusing number of funds that have different degrees of risk and global coverage, the general idea being that you buy into a basket of investments of a certain risk level that balance each other out: losses on one might be more than compensated by wins on another. It’s a long-term investment that locks up your funds and you can still lose some money, but it’s a popular option given that bank savings accounts pay so little interest these days as to be almost worthless, especially when inflation is eating into the value of your capital.
Your passive income from stocks and shares comes from any change in the value of the assets and a share of the profits of the underlying assets (a dividend). The Government also has favourable taxation rules for ISAs.
Savings Accounts
Savings accounts are simpler: you deposit some assets, and you earn more assets over time. In general, you have much easier access to your money in an emergency.
Cryptocurrency
For a more flexible investment that also pays more than bank savings accounts or ISAs, you need newer markets such as Cryptocurrency. New markets are presenting a lot of opportunities for businesses, but more friction raising funds, so there’s an opportunity for higher lending rates to businesses that you can benefit from.
For smaller investors, there are basically two realistic options to earn a decent amount of passive income that’s also accessible:
- Buy some reputable Cryptocurrency (such as Bitcoin or Ethereum) and put it somewhere to earn interest (an investment approach)
- Buy the electronic version of a foreign currency (for instance USDC) and put it somewhere to earn interest (a savings approach)
Even if you buy a reputable Cryptocurrency, the value of your investment can fluctuate quite significantly from day to day. However, it’s only a loss if you sell, and you should probably be thinking about long-term investment – Cryptocurrency has tended to go up in the long term. The people who made the most on Bitcoin were those who bought it early, then forgot about it, and remembered about it years later. As long as they didn’t lose their wallet details, they had a very nice surprise.
So, where do you find easy-to-use providers willing to pay you a decent amount of interest?
Well, at AQRU, we offer 0% interest on Bitcoin deposits, allowing you to acquire more Crypto painlessly. By offering up to 7% on digital dollars, you earn a return previously reserved for medium-to-high risk investment funds but without the value of your investment changing against the dollar.
One of the good things about Crypto investment or savings through AQRU is that you can withdraw your funds back to regular currency immediately for free, and deposit for free, too. The only fee we charge is $20 to withdraw your funds to Crypto.
We also give you a free 10USDC deposit that starts earning immediately.
You can get these in the AQRU app/website itself through our payment partner MoonPay (Moonpay transaction fees may apply).
Now, doesn’t that beat “starting an ATM business”? And you don’t have to pet-sit a single cat or dog! Sign up today to get started.
Capital at risk. You must be satisfied that this Crypto offering is suitable for you in light of your financial circumstances and attitude towards risk. The price or value of Cryptocurrencies can rapidly increase or decrease at any time. The risk of loss in holding Cryptocurrencies can be substantial. Funds received by us in relation to Cryptocurrency transactions are not safeguarded (under the UK Electronic Money Regulations 2011) or covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Cryptocurrencies are unregulated in the UK. Profits may be subject to Capital Gains Tax.